037 Femtocell Synchronization and Location White Paper Final

Femtocell Synchronization and Location
A Small Cell Forum White Paper
Published 08 May 2012
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Report title: Femtocell Synchronization and Location Issue date: 08 May 2012 Version: Published
Executive summary
Femtocells and Small Cells rely on, at least, frequency control in all markets and on synchronisation and location in specific markets and for specific air-interfaces. Without external support, economically viable frequency references (such as TCXOs) cannot meet the long term frequency stability required by the airinterface standards. Synchronisation (in this context meaning time-alignment of the transmitted frame structure within microseconds between neighbouring cells) is mandatory for all Time-Division (TD) air interfaces, CDMA2000 and EV-DO. Determination of precise location of femtocells by automatic means is required to meet regulatory and licensing requirements in some markets (but may also contribute to revenue-generating services). This paper addresses the common technological and economic challenges in achieving synchronisation and location determination for Femto and Small Cells. It is provided as a briefing for network operators, to encourage debate amongst Femto and Small Cell vendors as far as necessary to ensure that industry requirements can be met and to alert vendors from outside the immediate industry (e.g. of time-servers, routers, modems, GPS receivers) to the specific needs and opportunities offered by the market. The scope of the synchronisation challenge is well exemplified by the characteristics of two extreme cases, both in residential settings. A WCDMA residential femtocell (the type most widely deployed initially) requires only occasional frequency control (disciplining) of its in-built low-cost oscillator, say once or twice per day. This can be achieved by the exchange of NTP packet timing messages over the attached broad-band connection to a server dedicated to the purpose. Over some minutes or hours any frequency error can be assessed and a correction applied. The only significant overhead for the operator is the purchase cost of a time server (thousands of dollars) supporting perhaps tens of thousands of devices. At the opposite extreme, CDMA2000 and EV-DO (e.g. as deployed by Sprint and Verizon), TD-SDMA (China Mobile) and TDD-LTE devices need to be synchronised within microseconds to avoid dramatic reductions in capacity (CDMA2000) or complete failure(TD standards) as transmit frames clash with receive frames for neighbouring cells. In a residential deployment using DSL broadband (the most widely applied) there is no possibility to use an exchange of messages over the broadband connection to estimate time within microseconds because the uncertainty in the time of flight over the network is very much larger than this (typically 10s milliseconds). For CDMA2000 this problem has been addressed historically by deploying a GPS receiver with or within each femtocell. This approach has been reasonably successful (good enough coverage with few enough user complaints), at least in low rise North American homes where GPS signal penetration is good (a GPS receiver with sensitivity -156dBm will almost always succeed). Packet-timing, relying only on the availability of a connection to the infrastructure network, can be regarded as a universally available means of synchronisation subject to performance constrained by the nature of the network connection. Packet timing (perhaps in conjunction with other methods) is used in all of the initial WCDMA femtocell deployments. The existing protocols for packet timing (NTP and particularly PTP standardised in IEEE 1588) and equipment that implements them have yet to be optimised to deliver synchronisation over wide-area networks as economically as possible. GPS provides a reliable and accurate means of timing and location in any open-space environment anywhere in the world but is subject to the limits of signal propagation indoors and the possibility of jamming and interference. The most popular alternative or supporting method of synchronisation uses overlaying macro-cell transmissions or the signals from neighbouring small cells as references. Whilst this approach is highly effective, it clearly cannot be universal since, by its nature, it relies on existing coverage by a signal with verifiable timing. GPS merits significant attention in the paper since the perception of its applicability indoors and cost can be prejudiced by experience with devices designed for navigation. The paper shows that satellite-based navigation technologies in general, including GPS, and when used in assisted modes provide a viable solution for synchronising (and locating) Femtocells and Small Cells indoors albeit with increasingly stringent demands on performance as building penetration becomes more challenging. Other combinations of technologies have been shown to provide useful benefits. An approach discussed in some detail in this paper uses GPS as a primary source of synchronisation which is then passed on to a cluster of neighbouring devices where the network connections between devices in a cluster is sufficiently good to enable microsecond accuracy using packet timing. The obvious application example for this technology would be an Enterprise deployment making use of a company LAN between devices but other types of network (including some broadband access networks in Asia) have also been found to support this approach. Organisation of devices into clusters can be managed autonomously and even dynamically. This paper provides a broad introduction to practical methods of synchronisation focussing on the popular techniques of network packets, GPS and their combination and anticipating emerging methods using the physical layer of transport networks and the possibility of timing as a service as packet-based carrier networks deploy timing at the edge. Each technology is assessed in terms of its useful application to the
range of air-interfaces, its overheads and cost. For WCDMA femtocell applications, packet-based (NTP) timing remains both popular and appropriate as the universal, perhaps fall-back, solution. In a residential broad-band setting, packet timing at a rate measured in 10s of packets per minute can discipline an inexpensive TCXO to100ppb accuracy within around 30 minutes. For CDMA2000 and TD deployments, GPS provides the only universal solution for synchronisation but places constraints on practical deployments. However, backhaul networks can be engineered to support synchronisation of TD Small Cells using either physical-layer or packet methods. Physical-layer synchronisation methods include Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE) or frame alignment between modems in wireless or optical networks. Microsecond timing using the back-haul network relies on each node in the network being upgraded or deployed to support synchronisation, for example every router must support PTP or every modem carry over physical frame alignment between ports. For further study, the authors plan to address new back-haul technologies for Small Cells and residential Femtocells at the edge of the network. The ultimate challenge could be regarded as the residential TDD-LTE Femtocell where synchronisation has to be provided by GPS or a back-haul network that carries time accurately from a local exchange across the access technology, perhaps PON, via any last mile copper (perhaps using VDSL or SyncE) and then through any shared modems or routing equipment. The point has been well made that the underlying technologies in such an arrangement already support synchronisation but the demand is only now emerging that encourages equipment vendors to make these synchronisation features available from their products.
Contents
1. 2. 3. Introduction and Background .......................................... 1 Assisted GNSS ................................................................. 2 Network-based Synchronisation (NTP, PTP IEEE.1588, NTR) .............................................................................. 13 4. Hybrid AGPS-Packet Timing ........................................... 21 5. Cellular Network Listen.................................................. 30 6. Hybrid AGPS - Femto Sniff ............................................. 32 7. Implementation Considerations ..................................... 33 8. Conclusions and Future Work ........................................ 34 References ............................................................................... 36
Tables
Table 2-1 Table 3-1 Table 4-1 Table 4-2 Table 5-1 Multipath Characterization ............................................................... 8 Scenario characterisation .............................................................. 18 Network Scenarios of AGPS-PTP Hybrid ........................................... 24 2005 Housing in Seoul, KOSIS ....................................................... 26 Availability of Time Synch from Macro Networks ............................... 31
Figures
Figure 2-1 Figure 2-2 Figure 2-3 Figure 2-4 Figure 2-5 Figure 2-6 Figure 2-7 Figure 2-8 Figure 2-9 Pseudorange Calculation ................................................................. 2 GPS Signal Structure ...................................................................... 3 Signal Propagation Paths to Indoor Antennas ..................................... 5 Statistical Signal Level Models.......................................................... 7 Fix Probability in a Rural Standalone House on Flat Ground .................. 9 Fix Probability in a Rural Brick Apartment on Flat Ground .................... 9 Fix Probability in a Rural Steel & Concrete Office on Flat Ground ......... 10 Fix Probability in an Urban Steel and Concrete Office with Tinted Windows ..................................................................................... 10 Fix Probability in a Dense Urban Concrete Apartment ........................ 11
Figure 2-10 Fix Probability in a Dense Urban Steel and Concrete Office with Higher Attenuation Tinted Windows .......................................................... 11 Figure 3-1 Figure 3-2 Figure 3-3 Figure 3-4 Figure 4-1 Figure 4-2 Figure 4-3 Figure 4-4 Plot of individual time offset measurements over 83 minutes via a typical home DSL broadband connection ......................................... 15 Typical NTP Frequency Convergence over ADSL ................................ 19 Typical NTP Frequency Convergence over Cable ............................... 19 Typical NTP Frequency Convergence over a Private LAN Connection .... 20 AGPS-PTP network and clusters ..................................................... 22 Servers for 100K femtocells in AGNSS scenarios............................... 25 Required number of Servers Compared to PTP standalone ................. 26 Private Network Configuration (Office & Lab) ................................... 27
Figure 4-5 Figure 4-6 Figure 4-7
Private Network Test Result (Office & Lab) ....................................... 27 Public Network Test Configuration .................................................. 28 Public Network Test Result ............................................................ 28
1. Introduction and Background

Synchronization and location determination are critical functions for successful operation of femtocells. While seemingly distinct topics, they are often discussed together since the techniques used to accomplish one may often also be used to accomplish the other. The requirements of the standards for syntonization accuracy vary from 250 ppb for a WCDMA femtocell to 50 ppb for CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA and LTE. The requirements for time synchronization accuracy vary from no requirement for FDD WCDMA and FDD LTE to 1.5 s for TD-LTE and TD-SCDMA. Location requirements vary depending on the jurisdiction, the applications envisaged for the femtocell and the operators commercial strategy. The requirement for location to support the E-911 regulations in USA is 50m with 50% probability and 150m with 95% probability. Beyond these hard requirements there are operator-specific specifications and desires. Location may be required in order to confirm that the femtocell is being used within the operators licensed region. It may be used to ensure that commercial restrictions on the use of the femtocell are complied with. Location may be needed to allow time synchronization to be achieved with the required accuracy via macrocell sniffing. Location may also be needed to support locations specific or location based functions. If the femtocell is sold via a retail outlet independently of the operator then location may be completely unknown by the network a-priori. In this case, it may be desirable for the femtocell to determine its own location. Where the operator supplies the femtocell, the nominal location may be determined from the subscribers address. However, it may be desirable or necessary for the femtocell to independently confirm the location. The femtocell synchronization and location application is distinctly different from that of larger wireless base stations in a number of important respects. Firstly, the femtocell is self-contained and operating indoors with no possibility of using antennas external to the building. Indeed, it is distinctly undesirable to use antennas external to the femtocell enclosure. Secondly, the back-haul is generally a tunnel through the open internet, often connected via DSL. Thirdly, the economics are distinctly different as the entire femtocell cost needs to be extremely low with figures as low as US$50 being projected for mass market deployment. Offset against these differences, a single femtocell serves a very small number of customers and hence the probability of failure can be allowed to be higher than in the case of larger Node B devices. These differences all have serious implications for the design of synchronization and location solutions for femtocells. In fact, they render the synchronization problem for femtocells very distinct from that of any other telecoms synchronization application. For these reasons, the topic deserves a detailed study within Femto Forum. Recognition of that led to the publication of a topic brief within WG1 and subsequently to the formation of a group within WG2 to study the topic in greater depth and to produce this white paper. This document is the result of an intense study using available data. For each relevant technology, several scenarios were defined and characterized. The performance of that technology within each scenario was then analysed based on that characterization. Of course, there are varying performance capabilities represented within a given technology and the study has attempted to take that into account. Indeed it attempts to provide sufficient data to allow readers of this document to define benchmarks to be met by technology or component suppliers. Beyond performance, the study also attempts to define and quantify other selection parameters that may be used to select technologies. The following sections of this document consider each of the technologies concerned in turn. Firstly a description is provided in sufficient depth to facilitate a proper understanding of the discussions and analyses to follow. Then various environmental scenarios relevant to the femtocell application are introduced and characterized for that technology. The performance achievable in each scenario is then analysed and discussed and a selection of other factors are considered to facilitate comparison. The final section provides notes on implementation considerations.
2. Assisted GNSS
2.1
2.1.1
Description
GNSS Synchronization
GPS is the most mature and widely used of several Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), which also include GLONASS and Galileo. While location determination is perhaps the most familiar application of GPS, it also delivers an accurate timing reference which is needed in cellular systems requiring base stations to operate synchronously, such as CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA, WiMAX, and TD-LTE. In addition to timing reference, GPS delivers a quantification of the frequency error which can provide asynchronous systems such as UMTS with the frequency-disciplining reference they need to satisfy frequency accuracy requirements. GPS works by multilateration between the receiver and a number of satellites continuously moving across the sky. Around ten satellites are generally visible at any one time in open sky environments. Each satellite transmits a signal whose spreading code phase and carrier frequency are known. The receiver operates by searching for the distinctive waveform (spreading code) from each satellite at a large number of code phase and frequency offsets. Only when code phase is matched within a microsecond and frequency within a few Hz will the matching (correlation) process result in a value significantly above the noise. Once signals from four or more satellites have been detected in this way the receiver locks its tracking loops to them and makes periodic measurements of carrier frequency and pseudorange. The latter is calculated as the speed of light multiplied by the difference between time of receipt of a signal instant and time of transmission of that signal instant. The pseudoranges constitute four or more independent pieces of information which is enough information to solve the 4-dimensional problem of location and time. The four or more carrier frequencies can also be used to solve for receiver velocity and the frequency error of the reference oscillator.
Figure 2-1
Pseudorange Calculation
For a receiver known to be stationary, time and frequency can be estimated accurately using a single GPS signal once the position has been accurately determined. This is done by inverting the pseudorange calculation (See Figure 2-1): ToR = ToT + Range/C where Range is calculated based on the known location of the receiver and the calculated location of the satellite at the Time of Transmission (ToT). Frequency can be similarly determined using the measured carrier frequency and calculated satellite Doppler offset. Knowledge of the receiver clock error can be used to tune that error out and to align a reference pulse (e.g., a 1 pulse-per-second 1PPS) with the GPS second or, by using a precise model of the varying UTC-GPS offset, with the UTC second. Accuracy indoors is better than 1 s and is typically better than 300 ns. Knowledge of the frequency error may be used to discipline the reference oscillator directly. Frequency accuracy is generally better than 10 ppb and is typically better than 5 ppb.
2.1.2
Assisted GNSS (AGNSS)
Conventionally, GPS operates in a self-contained way: the location device operates on its own and all relevant information must be recovered from the Navigation Message modulated on the satellite signals. This includes the ephemeris data (i.e., the precise orbital coefficients), the almanac data (a coarse set of orbital coefficients), satellite clock correction coefficients, ionospheric correction coefficients, and UTC-GPS offset correction coefficients. Of these, the ephemeris data is most frequently extracted since it is typically valid for only four hours and is updated every two hours. Each satellite transmits its own ephemeris data and also almanac data for the entire constellation. The latter is current for a week and useable for months. It is useful when acquiring new satellites but is not essential for normal operation. To recover the Navigation Message, the received signal strength needs to be high enough to demodulate the 50 bps Binary Phase Shift Keyed (BPSK) signal. This demands an energy per bit to noise spectral density ratio of around 10 dB which corresponds to a carrier-to-noise ratio (C/No) of around 27 dB-Hz which, in turn, corresponds, to a signal level at the antenna output of around -142dBm. However, slower extraction is achievable down to around -145 dBm or slightly lower. In contrast, in an Assisted GPS (A-GPS) enabled femtocell, the small amount of data carried by the satellite signal is instead supplied as assistance data via a backhaul connection such as DSL or cable. A-GPS removes the requirement to demodulate the unknown data when processing the signal, allowing the GPS receiver to operate at a signal level significantly below -145dBm. This ability is crucial for deep indoor operation where signals are subject to significant attenuation. When a GPS receiver is used to provide timesynchronisation, a signal from at least one satellite must be received continuously. However, where only occasional location or frequency adjustments are required, intermittent operation may be sufficient. Typically also, coarse location and time are supplied with the assistance. This limits the search ranges in the acquisition process thereby speeding acquisition.
2.1.3
Conventional High Sensitivity AGNSS Techniques
The various GNSS signals all operate at L-Band and share similar signal structures. Therefore we shall take GPS as a representative example. As indicated in Figure 2-2 the GPS signal structure consists of a carrier signal that is spread in frequency by being multiplied by a spreading code and then Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) modulated by the navigation message.
Figure 2-2
GPS Signal Structure
High sensitivity is achieved by using long correlations. The unknown data transitions in the BPSK modulated GPS signal occur at 20ms periods and this normally limits the length of coherent correlations. Longer
correlations are achieved by a combination of coherent and non-coherent correlation. The amplitudes of the coherent correlation values are averaged. Unfortunately, this process suffers from the phenomenon of squaring loss which arises from the fact that the noise in the amplitudes is biased rather than being zero mean noise. The bias is not diminished by averaging and, hence, non-coherent correlation gives diminishing returns effectively limiting the achievable sensitivity.
2.1.4
High Sensitivity Through Data Wiping
Many A-GPS solutions use a technique known as data wiping to achieve very high sensitivity. This takes advantage of the fact that parts of the navigation message are known a-priori or are supplied as assistance. Using the known data bits it is possible to perform coherent correlations for longer than a data bit (20ms) and thereby to achieve higher sensitivity than is achievable using short coherent correlations. However, this technique also has drawbacks and limitations. The first such drawback arises from the fact that the a-priori data bits have to be accurately aligned with the incoming data bits. In other words, data synchronization must be achieved with the incoming signal. This can be done readily if the receiver already has precise time as it can have, for example, if deployed in a CDMA handset. Alternatively it can be achieved on the fly by a search process. However, the receiver is already searching across the code space and the Doppler space and this adds a further dimension to the search. In fact, if time is known only to within 2s then this additional search dimension effectively multiplies the search volume by a factor of 4000. Other techniques have been developed that use imprecise data synch (ie within a few ms) which would allow high sensitivity albeit with some loss. These techniques can be used for location but not for timing. The reason is that imprecise data synchronization leads to timing errors given that the time of transmission (TOT) is one element of the pseudorange. The TOT is determined from the measured codephase and knowing the precise point of the code epoch in the data sequence. The usual approach to solve this problem is to acquire one signal above the data extraction threshold first and to achieve data sync with it by conventional means. That introduces the serious limitation that there must be one signal above the data extraction threshold. This data synch is then transferred to all of the other channels. That introduces the further requirement that the location must be known a-priori or via assistance to an accuracy of 75km. The reason is that the timing difference between two channels must be small enough so that unambiguous data synch is achieved. That requires the data synch to be within 0.5 epoch of the spreading code or 0.5 ms. If the times of flight of the two satellite signals involved is known to 75km each then the difference between them is only known to 150km which represents an unknown difference in the times of flight of 0.5ms.
2.1.5
High Sensitivity via Non-Linear Signal Processing
Alternative schemes have been developed which get round these limitations. These use non-linear signal processing techniques to effectively extend the coherent correlations or to avoid the bias of the noise in the amplitude estimates prior to non-coherent correlation. Some of these techniques produce much higher sensitivity than is achieved conventionally and without the limitations of data wiping. However, they do not achieve the ultimate sensitivity of data wiping as the non-linear processes themselves involve losses.
2.1.6
Sensitivity Performance Implications Of The Techniques Used
As a result, some AGPS timing solutions provide very high acquisition sensitivity (eg -160 dBm) but require at least one much stronger signal (eg -145 dBm) and location to within 75 km while others provide slightly poorer acquisition sensitivity (eg -157 dBm) without those limitations.
Indoor Performance of AGNSS Receivers The phenomena limiting the effectiveness of AGNSS solutions indoors include the following:
1. 2. 3. 4. Attenuation of the signals by roofs (10dB-20dB), floors (10dB), walls (5dB 10dB) and even by tinted windows (10dB), Multipath fading effects, Pseudorange errors resulting from path length increases caused by reflections both inside the building and, more importantly, from nearby structures as illustrated in Error! Reference source not found., Cross-correlation effects,
5.
Presence of CW interference sources
The impact of the first of these factors will be examined at length later in this document. The second phenomenon can be problematic deep indoors where frequent fades of some signals can hamper the acquisition search process. The third results in timing errors. However, a 300m path length increase is needed to cause a 1 s error. Thus, although the timing precision available indoors is far worse than is available outdoors (10ns in some cases) it is very rarely as bad as 1 s and, more typically, is less than 300ns. The C/A-Code GPS signal has limited dynamic range in that strong signals can jam weaker ones. That is to say that cross-correlations with very strong signals are indistinguishable from a true correlation with a very weak signal. This is rarely a problem in outdoor operation and is easily avoided. However, high sensitivity receivers have to be able to deal with unattenuated signals as well as heavily attenuated signals. Hence they require effective mitigation techniques for cross correlation. Continuous Wave (CW) interference can be generated by a wide range of electronic devices from computers to all forms of radio receivers and transmitters. Most of these interferers are out of band and are filtered out by bandpass filters in the GPS receivers and antennas. However, in-band interferers are much more problematic. The most problematic are those from sources very close to the antenna. In a femtocell the most troublesome sources are those inside the femtocell emitted from clock signal paths. This problem is discussed in the final section of this document. However, other sources also exist. Therefore it is essential that effective CWI mitigation techniques are also employed within the GPS receiver.
Direct through roof, walls & windows

Attenuated No added path length Dominant for suburban residences Attenuation is relatively slight in standalone houses but high in apartments
Reflected internally
Attenuated Small added path length Dominant for large apartment blocks
Reflected externally
Attenuated Large added path length Occasional but more common in inner city apartment blocks
Figure 2-3
Signal Propagation Paths to Indoor Antennas
2.2
2.2.1
Scenario Characterization
Scenario Definition
For AGNSS, segmentation is by: Outdoor or Indoor Building type Rural or suburban or urban or dense urban Topography
This yields a large number of segments. However, we have distilled the number of scenarios to obtain a smaller number for full characterization. The chosen scenarios are distinctly different in characterization. It was found that building type was the dominant factor although the dense urban environment does provide significant differences in characterization compared to the rural environment. The scenarios we have chosen for full characterization are:
Rural standalone house in flat terrain, Rural brick apartment building in flat terrain, Rural steel and concrete office building with tinted windows in flat terrain, Urban steel and concrete apartment building with tinted windows Dense urban concrete apartment, Dense urban steel and concrete office building with higher attenuation tinted windows.
2.2.2
GPS Signal Levels Indoors
Data on L-band satellite to indoors attenuation is very sparse but some studies of attenuation or of indoor GPS signal levels have been reported in the literature [1] [2] [3]. Using the data from these sources we have constructed probabilistic models for indoor GPS signal level for each of three scenarios. These are a rural standalone 2-storey timber home, a suburban multi-storey apartment and a steel and concrete urban multi-storey office building with tinted windows. These models are interpolated and extrapolated based on the field experience of the authors. While the source data and experience relied upon is believed to provide a good guide it is recommended that these models be rigorously field tested and refined as necessary. Femto Forum WG2 has indicated an interest in undertaking such testing using the direct resources of the members.
2.2.3
Construction of Statistical Models
The data from Lachapelle et al [1] is presented in the form of a collection of penetration loss histograms overlaid (Figure 5 of [1]). Each one represents a different range of elevation angles. However, the data is not sufficiently precise to warrant treatment by elevation angle. Instead, a conservative log-normal outdoor to indoor attenuation model was constructed with a histogram that simply spanned the spread of histograms. The data from Bodnar et al [2] is penetration loss presented in tabular form (Table III of [2]) by floor and by elevation angle after averaging over the azimuth angles. Line-Of-Sight (LOS) signal level data by elevation angle is added to this to give mean (over azimuth) indoor signal level by floor and by elevation angle. Standard deviation of the signal level by floor and by elevation was computed from a separate table (Table IV of [2]) of penetration loss versus azimuth angle for elevation angles of 30 and 60 on the first floor and 60 on the top floor. The standard deviation was computed as the mean of the standard deviations obtained from the three data sets. The means and standard deviations for each of the three floors were then computed taking account of the standard deviations of the variations across azimuth angle. The overall mean and standard deviation was then computed assuming that the top, bottom and middle floors between them are representative of the whole building. The mean and standard deviation of the population samples in the 13 signal level measurements provided by Mittelman et al [3] were calculated directly. Then the values corresponding to the top and bottom floors of the building were estimated based on these using the example from the data provided by Bodnar et al [3]. The statistical models from the three floors are then combined to give overall mean and standard deviation as in the previous case. The Mittelman measurements were made in an office building surrounded by other buildings on 3 sides but wide open on the northern side. This was taken to be representative of an urban environment. For the dense urban case, we replaced the measurements made on the northern side with the mean of the measurements made on the western side and recomputed the means and standard deviations. To account for windows with greater attenuation we reduced the mean of the distribution by 5dB so that this distribution now represents the signal levels inside a severe dense urban steel and concrete apartment building. Thus we now have four distributions of indoor signal levels represented by the means and standard deviations of the corresponding outdoor to indoor log-normal attenuation distributions. These represent conservative models for the signal level distributions in a timber house, an office or apartment building, a steel and concrete office building with tinted windows and a steel and concrete office building with higher attenuation tinted windows in a dense urban environment. The other two environments were interpolated from these based on experience.
2.2.4
Signal Level Models for the Selected Scenarios
Error! Reference source not found. illustrates the signal level models for the six selected scenarios derived as discussed in the previous sub-section of this document. Note that each curve represents the probability of the signal from any given satellite above the horizon at that location having a level above the horizontal ordinate. These curves can be used to estimate the availability of location fixes and timing fixes based on the sensitivity characteristics of a given GPS receiver.
100.00% 90.00% 80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% -170 -165 -160 -155 -150 -145 -140 0.00% -135 -130
Rural Flat Standalone House Rural Flat office Building Dense Urban Concrete Apartment
Figure 2-4 Statistical Signal Level Models
Rural Flat Brick Apartment Typical Urban Office Building Severe Dense Urban Office Building
2.2.5
Multipath Characterization
The multipath environment is an important characterization for GNSS and CNL as it determines the accuracy achievable as well as the nature of the fading to be expected. As indicated in Figure 2-4, there are 3 distinct limiting cases: When all the signals arrive via direct penetration of the walls, roof and windows, they are attenuated but not delayed. Also there is only one dominant path. As a result, the signals are attenuated but there is no contribution to the pseudorange errors from multipath and the signal levels do not exhibit fade variations as a result of the interference between replicas of the same signal arriving with varying delays. When the signals arrive via the direct path and via internal reflections within the building there is a significant contribution to the pseudorange errors from multipath and fade variation is also exhibited. However, both of these effects are limited by the internal dimensions of the building. When the signals arrive via the direct path and via external reflections these effects are more extreme because much larger path length variations are possible. In the real world, signals arrive internally via some combination of the three main mechanisms and there is a continuum of multipath error magnitudes and fade variations. Based on experience and consideration of the causal mechanisms, the authors have come up with the characterization of the selected scenarios in Table 2-1. Again, this should be tested by means of rigorous field testing.
Scenario
Maximum Fade Variation (dB) 2 3 3 6 10
Typical Maximum Path Extension (m) 2 10 20 100 100
Typical Maximum Timing Error (ns) 15 40 60 300 300
Standalone House Brick Apartment Office Building Dense Urban Apartment Dense Urban Office
Table 2-1
Multipath Characterization
Note that the typical maximum error is a function of receiver performance as well as the multipath conditions. The figures in Table 2-1 represent benchmark performance for the standalone house and brick apartment. For the other three scenarios, however, the error is dominated by the multipath contribution.
2.3
2.3.1
Comparison Measures
Fix Availability
A key performance consideration for AGPS indoors is sensitivity and, more specifically, the availability of location fixes. The reason is that measurements from four signals are required to make a location fix and timing is not available until the location has been established with precision of around 300m at worst. In contrast, once location has been established, timing can be maintained using only measurements from a single satellite signal. As discussed earlier, AGPS receivers actually have two acquisition sensitivity parameters although this is not well known. One is the acquisition sensitivity that applies when data synch with the satellite signals is unavailable. This is the sensitivity that would always apply when acquiring the first satellite signal after power up. I will refer to this as Initial Acquisition Sensitivity (IAS). IAS can be defined as the signal level of the weakest signal that the receiver can acquire and determine the Time Of Transmission of from a cold start when assisted with: ephemeris coefficients satellite clock correction coefficients coarse time (eg within 2 or 3 seconds) coarse position (eg within 500km)
Since this is almost never quoted by GPS suppliers, a method of testing for it is of interest. In theory this should be easy to test for using a GPS signal simulator. However, evaluation software is required that can source assistance from a second receiver receiving strong signals from the same simulator. The setup is straightforward but the availability of suitable software is often a stumbling block. An alternative technique involves the use of an antenna with a clear view of the sky, a variable attenuator, a splitter and a second receiver. The receiver should be preceded by a preamplifier as recommended by the manufacturer. In this test method the signal level of the strongest signal is set by referring to the second receiver which is tracking the signals continuously. The receiver under test is then subject to an assisted cold start using the assistance specified above. The signal level of the strongest signal is reduced until the receiver under test is unable to perform a fix. Even this technique can be difficult to execute because of limitations in the control afforded by the available evaluation software over the assistance and the data saved by the receiver. The second sensitivity parameter is the sensitivity that applies when some degree of data synch has been achieved. I will call this the Ultimate Acquisition Sensitivity (UAS). UAS would apply for acquiring the second and subsequent signals at best but is often the sensitivity quoted in data sheets. In most cases.position would have to be known a-priori to an accuracy of 75km for the UAS to be applicable. If position is not known to the required accuracy then, in most cases, the IAS would still apply for the subsequent acquisitions after the first signal. Using the data of Error! Reference source not found. it is possible to calculate the probability of a osition fix for a receiver in a given environment if its IAS and UAS are known. The following figures are the result of calculating the probability of acquiring 1 signal from 9 available satellites using the IAS and 3
signals from the remaining 8 available satellites using the UAS assuming that position is known to the required accuracy a-priori. Each chart represents one of the six AGPS scenarios described earlier.
100.00%
100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 99.99% 99.90% 99.79% 99.70% 99.58% 99.50% 99.30% -142 99.38% -140
-156
-154
-152
-150
-148
-146
-144
Initial Acquisition Sensitivity (dBm) UAS = -156dBm UAS = -159dBm

Figure 2-5
UAS = -157dBm UAS = -160dBm
UAS = -158dBm
Fix Probability in a Rural Standalone House on Flat Ground
100.00%
100.00% 99.99% 99.97% 99.96%
100.00% 99.50% 99.00% 98.68% 98.50% 98.00% -14298.04% -140
99.32%
-156
-154
-152
-150
-148
-146
-144

Figure 2-6
UAS = -158dBm
Fix Probability in a Rural Brick Apartment on Flat Ground
100.00% 95.00% 90.00% 85.00% 80.00% 75.00% -156 -154 -152 -150 -148 -146 -144 70.00% -142 -140

Figure 2-7
UAS = -158dBm
Fix Probability in a Rural Steel & Concrete Office on Flat Ground
100.00% 95.00% 90.00% 85.00% 80.00% 75.00% 70.00% 65.00% -156 -154 -152 -150 -148 -146 -144 60.00% -142 -140

Figure 2-8
UAS = -158dBm
Fix Probability in an Urban Steel and Concrete Office with Tinted Windows
10
100.00%
100.00% 99.96% 99.92% 99.88%
100.00% 99.00% 98.00% 97.38% 97.00%
98.63%
-156
-154
-152
-150
-148
-146
-144

Figure 2-9
96.00% -142 -140 96.13%
UAS = -158dBm
Fix Probability in a Dense Urban Concrete Apartment
100.00% 80.00% 60.00% 40.00% 20.00% 0.00% -142 -140
-156
-154
-152
-150
-148
-146
-144
Initial Acquisition Sensitivity (dBm) UAS = -156dBm UAS = -157dBm UAS = -158dBm UAS = -159dBm UAS = -160dBm
Figure 2-10 Fix Probability in a Dense Urban Steel and Concrete Office with Higher Attenuation Tinted Windows In Figure 2-5, Figure 2-6, Figure 2-7, Figure 2-8, Figure 2-9and Figure 2-10, there are actually separate plots for UAS from -156dBm to -160dBm in 1dB steps as this is the range of ultimate acquisition sensitivities exhibited by available AGPS receivers. However, as can be seen the UAS has negligible impact on the availability of fixes at least with IAS ranging from -142 dBm to -155 dBm which is the range of IAS exhibited by available AGPS receivers. The IAS dominates the availability performance. It is important to note that the performance described in the above charts is ideal in a number of respects: 1. 2. 3. It assumes the use of an efficient antenna. Antenna choice will be discussed in the following major section of this document. Antenna efficiency is largely limited by the available space for the antenna. However, in most femtocell designs this should not be a major restriction. It assumes the incorporation of a sufficiently large ground plane to achieve efficient antenna operation if a patch antenna is employed. This can be restricted especially in upright designs. It assumes no de-sensitization by strong interference. However, in most femtocell designs there is considerable potential for the generation of in-band clock harmonics and harmonics of CDMA spread baseband signals strong enough to desensitize the GPS receiver. Measures to minimize the problem of interference will be discussed in the next major section. It assumes no reduction of the number of available signals caused by the presence of weak interferers close to the carrier signals. Again, such interferers are almost inevitable in a
4.
11
5.
femtocell. Although they may not be strong enough to desensitize the receiver they may still render unusable any signal that they come close to in frequency. (Note that GPS signal Doppler offset varies over a range of 8kHz which means that an interferer may affect one signal only temporarily and without affecting any others.) This will effectively reduce the availability of signals. It ignores the effects of time varying signal fades. This is generally only a problem deep indoors in the worst categories of buildings. AGPS receivers take time to search in carrier frequency and code phase for weak signals. If the signals fade during the search then they may not be acquired until the receiver looks for that satellite signal again. Also, embedded indoor AGPS receivers should carefully monitor the signals they acquire before using the measurements from them in order to guard against effects from interference or unstable tracking. However, the signal may fade before the measurements are made available. The end result can be very extended acquisition time although it should not affect the ultimate probability of making a fix.
Many of the above issues can be minimized if not eliminated by good design of the femtocell. Nevertheless it would be prudent to derate the receiver performance by 2 to 3 dB before consulting these charts. On that basis, AGPS fix availability varies from below 20% to about 87% in a dense urban office building with high attenuation tinted windows depending on the AGPS solution employed. It is much higher in the other scenarios.
2.3.2
Fix Acquisition Time
The time taken to acquire a fix and commence positioning and timing is another parameter of interest to femtocell developers and wireless operators. This is a complicated question in the case of AGPS indoors because of the time varying fade phenomenon. Indoors in houses or brick apartments or close to windows the acquisition speed is largely determined by the search speed of the GPS baseband technology employed. Typical acquisition times will vary from a few tens of seconds up to several minutes. However, deeper indoors in office buildings the acquisition speed tends to be determined by the time taken waiting for four or more signals to be available with adequate signal strength and dilution of precision to allow a first position fix to be made. This can be as high as 20 or 30 minutes. In locations with marginal availability of fixes the delay may be even longer while waiting for the satellites to move into more favourable locations with respect to building walls and apertures.
2.3.3
Accuracy
AGPS position accuracy indoors is largely determined by the multipath environment. Table 1 is a good guide to the accuracy achievable from a single fix. However, as a guide, in steel and concrete multi-storey buildings the horizontal accuracy of an individual fix will typically be limited to the footprint of the building. Vertical accuracy will be worse because the vertical dilution of precision is poorer in any GNSS system. However, the positioning performance can be improved by averaging and most timing receivers offer the feature of self-surveying. Typically this involves averaging position over 10,000 fixes and is used to minimize the timing error caused by the error in the estimated antenna location. Indoors, however, the errors are dominated by multipath effects which change much more slowly. For this reason, a 24-hour selfsurvey period is recommended as this will average across all multipath scenarios for a given antenna location given that the satellites return to almost the same positions in the sky after 24 hours. With this approach accuracy of better than 20m is achievable with about 95% certainty. AGPS timing accuracy indoors typically ranges from 30ns to 300ns depending on the multipath scenario. In the worst conditions, timing errors of up to 1 s are possible but extremely rare. Hence, subject to availability, AGPS offers excellent timing performance. Frequency accuracy from AGPS receivers that directly provide it is typically better than 5ppb with occasional excursions to around 10ppb. The oscillator is disciplined taking account of GPS carrier frequency measurements and GPS timing measurements. For AGPS solutions that do not directly provide frequency, the timing pulses (typically 1PPS) can be used to discipline an oscillator with similar precision.
2.3.4
AGPS Assistance Requirements
A package of assistance data for 12 satellites but not including the optional almanac data can be packaged into a binary payload of around 1052 bytes. The ephemeris data is valid for 4 hours and typically changes every 2 hours. Hence if a receiver required assistance continuously, the average requirement would be to send a package of assistance once every 4 hours with a maximum requirement to send a package every 2 hours. Hence the maximum bandwidth requirement is an average of 1052 bytes per 7200 seconds or under 0.15 bytes per second.
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An assistance scheme can operate as a pull assistance scheme or as a push assistance scheme. In the latter case the server would send a complete package of assistance to each femtocell every four hours. This has the advantage of simplicity but involves unnecessarily large volumes of assistance. Femtocells located in free-standing houses for example would very rarely even need assistance. In USA this represents approximately 80% of residential femtocells. In other residential scenarios some femtocells would not need assistance and many femtocells would only need some assistance some of the time. In addition, femtocells may only need assistance for some of the satellites visible from their location. Hence, a pull assistance scheme in which the AGPS receiver requests only the assistance it needs when it needs it, minimizes the assistance volume that needs to be supported by the servers. Another consideration is the server load at ephemeris changeover times. In a pull assistance scheme these times will involve demands for assistance from a large number of femtocells at around the same times. To spread this load over a reasonable time frame it is desirable for the requests to be randomised in time. This can be done by the AGPS receiver or by the femtocell main processor. The same consideration applies to assistance demands after power blackouts and the like.
2.3.5
Oscillator Requirements
AGPS can be used to disciplines the master oscillator directly with that same master oscillator clocking the AGPS receiver itself. In addition, AGPS can be used to generate adaptive temperature compensation tables for use in significantly extending the holdover of relatively low cost oscillators with inherent stability of only around 1PPM. Holdover as good as 50ppb over 24 hours and 3 s over 30 minutes has been demonstrated using such oscillators. However, this does require careful selection of oscillators taking account of the rate of change of frequency with temperature and hysteresis effects. In addition, a start-up frequency requirement of around 250ppb or better demands pre-loading of temperature tables in production.
2.3.6
Complexity
The form of AGPS solutions can vary from a standalone surface mount modules through single chip GPS processors with small numbers of surrounding components to software solutions running in femtocell baseband processors and involving only an external GPS RF solution. All require antennas which can be integrated into the femtocell itself. It is recommended that such antennas be active antennas to minimize potential for interference to the AGPS receiver via the antenna cable. A typical chip level receiver solution would involve between 10 and 30 passive components, possibly a Low Noise Amplifier chip, a SAW filter and an oscillator (which may be the master oscillator of the femtocell) in addition to the GPS chip or, in the case of a software GPS solution, a GPS front-end chip. Module solutions have the advantage that they come fully tested from the factory and are very simple to integrate both in design and in production. Hence they minimize time-to-market and risk in both development and production. However, for mass production they represent a relatively expensive solution from a BOM point of view although this may be offset by other considerations.
2.3.7
Cost
Total cost for the Bill Of Materials in 100KU volumes could vary from $15 to $20 for a module solution down to $6 to $10 for a chip level solution down to $? to $? for a software solution. However, other costs and offsetting cost savings should also be taken into account such as royalty charges and the absorption of other functions including the master oscillator and disciplining functions (where applicable) and synchronization switching functions (where applicable).
3. Network-based Synchronisation (NTP, PTP IEEE.1588, NTR)

3.1
3.1.1
Description
Packet-based (NTP, PTP IEEE.1588)
For synchronization using the wired backhaul, protocols such as Network Time Protocol (NTP), and Precision Time Protocol (PTP) (also known as IEEE 1588) are available. In principle, both of these protocols can be used to provide frequency and time synchronization throughout packet networks. PTP is used increasingly widely and very effectively to provide both frequency control and time synchronisation in Local Area Networks (LAN) and in telecommunications core networks. However, these deployments enjoy the luxuries of high packet rate, managed or no congestion (and hence packet delay variation) and relatively few clients
13
per server. In Wide Area Network or Internet deployments, the primary problems that must be overcome by packet-based solutions are: Variability in time transfer latency (jitter) due to network latency created by hubs, switches, cables, and other hardware that reside between the clocks, latency associated with the processing of timing packets, time uncertainty introduced by asymmetry, and the cost of server and network load.
It has been established that the need to synchronize a femtocell to a reliable frequency, and in many cases time reference, cannot be avoided. From the integrators perspective, the ideal synchronization technology would be reliable, fast, inexpensive and universally available. Wired network packet-based solutions have been adopted as, at least, the fall-back solution in the current generation of femtocells because they meet an important subset of these desires, notably the universal availability we can take it for granted that a femtocell enjoys a network connection. Historically NTP has been used to deliver approximate time across the internet from a few servers to a very large number of clients. Short packet exchanges used for synchronization occur every few days and clocks are synchronised to within 100 ms or so. PTP has been used in industrial settings on local area networks and in the core of telecommunications networks to deliver microsecond synchronization. Synchronizing femtocells is a new and unique application of packet based timing. PTP and NTP operate in a fundamentally identical way, relying on a short exchange of time-stamped packets to estimate the time at the client. Frequency is derived from a rate-of-change-of-time observation at the client using time measurements spread over some duration. However, they differ in some important details relevant to their application to femtocells. PTP is a natural choice for delivering synchronisation in an Enterprise or other managed network environment to a number of types of devices. A simple server-client model works well in single-building or small-site settings. PTP-enabled routers (boundary and transparent clocks) extend the reach and performance of PTP in larger deployments or across core networks. These deployments rely on investment in PTP-enabled routers throughout the path between grand master and client. Whilst this may appear to be a significant overhead when associated with a single service such as femtocells, PTP may also be available as a common service in future networks. Although PTP clients (e.g. femtocells) initiate subscription to a PTP server and round-trip delay measurements, the server sends synchronisation packets to the client autonomously and using a specific port unrelated to the client-initiated exchanges. As a result, the synchronisation packets will not naturally traverse a NAT gateway (such as a home router) without specific configuration. Although conventionally NTP is used over the internet to synchronise clocks in IT equipment within a second or so, it can also be used to good effect to provide time and frequency control for femtocells given dedicated servers and specifically optimised client algorithms (client algorithms have no effect on compatibility with standard servers). (Note that public NTP servers support neither the capacity nor sufficient confidence in accuracy required for femtocells.) NTP clients initiate each transaction with the server so suffer no difficulties with NAT traversal. Since time (derived from NTP) is key to the integrity of many secure systems and protocols (including SSL and network file-server authentication), some corporate networks restrict access to a specific list of trusted external NTP servers.
3.1.2
Packet Timing over Home Broadband Access
Packet-based timing over home broadband access presents some challenges. In the absence of access to a Network Timing Reference (e.g., the DSL symbol rate clock or Synchronous Ethernet) a packet based scheme provides no direct estimate of frequency error. Frequency error between local and reference clocks is measured by quantifying the difference in apparent elapsed time over some duration. To put this in perspective, a typical 100 ppb measurement resolution requires a time measurement accurate to 100 s over a duration of 1000 seconds (around 17 minutes). In this context, the impact of network Packet Delay Variation (PDV) and its effect on acquisition time is apparent from Figure 3-1. The challenge for the measurement algorithm is to assess the slope of the distribution of points within 100 s on the Y-axis (half a division) over 1000s on the X-axis. To some extent, higher packet rates can be used to mitigate the effects of PDV observed at the femtocell client and can certainly be used to discipline an inexpensive reference oscillator. However, at least in early deployments, we cannot assume that timing servers will be accessible at any points in the network other than at the gateways which typically serve 20,000 100,000 clients. Operators will want to distribute the cost of these dedicated servers across a large number of femtocells restricting the rate at which any one
14
femtocell can poll the server. Note that this restriction applies equally regardless of the packet protocol (i.e., NTP or PTP) or customary deployment and usage model. For example, an operator may choose to deploy PTP servers at a density more typical of NTP infrastructure to extend the lifetime of the investment. (As a rule of thumb, a redundant pair of servers per gateway might support 5-20 polls per minute from each femtocell.)
Figure 3-1 Plot of individual time offset measurements over 83 minutes via a typical home DSL broadband connection Fundamentally, any packet-based scheme delivers to the client an estimate of time at intervals determined by the packet rate and subject to jitter according to the network Packet Delay Variation. The frequency offset of the local oscillator (usually a TCXO at the femtocell) can be then be estimated via a statistical treatment of the individual measurements of time. At its crudest, the statistical treatment could be nothing more than a simple average. The limiting factor in the frequency measurement accuracy is then determined by the stability of the local baseline for the time measurements, i.e., the stability of the local TCXO. With some sophistication in the statistical processing and a local oscillator with 100 ppb stability, low packet rate (5-20 polls per minute) solutions can maintain absolute frequency accuracy of the order of tens of ppb in a home environment. Access and backhaul networks introduce packet delay distortions that go beyond variable queuing delays, including but not limited to path diversity and route reconfiguration. Since the underlying process is in essence a measurement of slope, a good estimate of absolute time at the femtocell is unnecessary to achieving a good estimate of frequency. All that can be said of absolute time at the client is that it lies between the limits of round-trip delay measured using the packet protocol. Other than for exceptional links, however, correct absolute time is usually within a few milliseconds of the centre of this range. Ultimately, packet-based synchronisation methods on domestic broadband cannot be relied upon for microsecond timing without overcoming the limitations of the software or part-software implementations of modem, Network Address Translation and firewall functions in the subscribers home equipment. Good implementations of standard packet timing protocols (construction and exchange of the messages on the wire) are readily available. On a light weight client platform with potentially significant latency in software processing, the application of local time stamps requires some care and ideally hardware support to avoid unnecessary aggravation of the PDV problem. While the standard implementations of NTP and PTP include default statistical treatments of the resulting time measurements, they do not provide sufficient performance to adequately discipline a femtocell oscillator. To date, proprietary designs are used for this part of successful solutions. Internet access by satellite provides service in niche markets and to remote populations. Access may be by two-way satellite or satellite down-link and low-speed telephone modem uplink. Since the performance of packet timing is determined primarily by jitter, the (essentially) fixed additional delay need not degrade synchronisation. However, any additional jitter introduced in making best use of the relatively expensive capacity would be a concern in providing synchronisation over satellite back-haul.
3.1.3
Infrastructure Requirement
There is no significant fundamental difference between the backhaul data rate required to support PTP and NTP clients delivering the same level of performance. In simple deployments with a single master (at a gateway, for example) serving clients directly, infrastructure costs will be comparable for comparable packet rates and performance. However, PTP introduces the important enhancement of support for boundary clocks which may be placed at intermediate points in the network, for example at local exchange DSLAMs. Where a
15
boundary clock can be placed close to the subscriber and outside any part of the network subject to contention, a very much higher packet rate can be supported for each client with very much less apparent jitter. This will certainly allow the cost of the timing solution at the client to be reduced; the effect on infrastructure cost will depend on how it is shared and any additional costs of access. In the long term it seems likely that PTP boundary clocks will exist widely at local exchanges (and cable head-ends). Their availability for femtocell synchronization will then be subject mainly to the commercial relationship between the operator of the local exchange and the mobile operator. This is especially relevant where a secure time source is required, e.g., for certificate validation purposes. In some deployments (typically over cable) it may be possible to operate at typical PTP packet rates of many per second end-to-end across the access network (client to gateway) and make full use of the client BOM cost savings. This approach comes at the cost of increased investment in server hardware at the gateway and monthly traffic burdens that run into many GByte. For deployments currently intended for third-party DSL access networks target packet rates are in the order of several per minute per femtocell rather than several per second.
3.1.4
Network Timing Reference (NTR)
For deployments on friendly networks where the femtocell and broadband modem are packaged together, in principle it is possible to use the Network Timing Reference for synchronization. The NTR is derived from a frequency reference at the local exchange or head-end and used to generate DSL symbol-rate timing and a range of frequencies embedded in cable distribution. Where it is available, use of the NTR is very efficient (potentially free and very fast) but relies on the femtocell including the broadband modem and the localexchange operators cooperation.
3.1.5
Location Determination
Coarse location may be derived from the IP address associated with the DSL or cable connection. This assumes that the femtocell or the management system has access to a database linking IP address to physical location. This database could possibly be owned by the broadband service provider, as opposed to the femtocell operator.
3.2
3.2.1
Scenario Definition
For packet-based timing, we have considered several levels of segmentation. The first level of segmentation is by "Broadband" Technology. We have tried to list the segments in order of popularity, but clearly there will be a regional element to consider. xDSL Cable B-ISDN T1/E1 Ethernet WiMax
Our second level of segmentation considers the "Access" Technologies. Again we have tried to list them in order of popularity: Native ethernet (ex. Metro Ethernet) Ethernet over TDM (ex. EoS) DWDM/OTN others
Our third level of segmentation focuses on the traffic loading and complexity of the network and applies mainly to asynchronous networks Line Rates (1G/10G . . ) Network complexity (number of network nodes) Network loading (20%, 80% .. . . ) ISP access rates Bandwidth limitations or traffic shaping
16
Our final level of segmentation deals with Server location & Access Relative location of the Server to the Femtocell Rate and performance of the Server (hardware or software based Time Stamping)
Again, this process has yielded a large number of segments and these have been distilled down based on the level of interest within the Femto Forum. The scenarios chosen for full characterization are: Broadband Technology: xDSL and Cable. Another 2 scenarios are recommended for future study: Fibre and GPON. Access Technologies: Ethernet
Network Complexity & Conditions Line Rates (1G/10G . . ) will be assumed for each scenario rather than used for segmentation Network complexity (number of network nodes) will be assumed for each scenario rather than used for segmentation Network loading (20%, 80% .. . . ) ISP access rates will be assumed for each scenario rather than used for segmentation Bandwidth limitations or traffic shaping
Server location & performance will be assumed for all scenarios.
3.2.2
Characterization
Residential networks differ greatly in performance with respect to jitter, packet loss and delay. Data are presented here for an ADSL broadband network and a cable network in the UK; measurements using a LAN connection are included for reference. Although the networks chosen are believed to be typical of their types, it is likely that other residential networks will exhibit somewhat different characteristics. The positioning of the packet time server in the network also has a significant effect on the performance of any equipment using it. The time server that was used to collect this data is a publicly available timeserver. The performance of its connection to the internet will also have affected the data gathered but it is not identified individually, only the whole path between the test system and the timeserver is characterised. Three metrics are used widely to characterise network performance: Packet Latency, Packet Delay Variation and Packet Loss. Packet Latency is simply the delay between a packet being transmitted and it being received; it is not constant for residential access networks. The magnitude of the Packet Latency is only of importance in the calculation of time synchronisation but changes in Packet Latency will affect the calculation of time and frequency synchronisation. The latency of packets to the timeserver may, and most often is, different from the latency of packets from the timeserver. The asymmetry in latency cannot be calculated from the received packets alone; it will affect time synchronisation but not frequency synchronisation. Packet Latency can be replaced with Round Trip Time (the time between a packet being transmitted and its response being received - not including any processing time at the responder). The asymmetries of the two networks described here are different; as with Packet Latency, the asymmetry of the network can (and does) change. The Packet Latency of a network can be described by using either the minimum latency or by the mean latency. The mean latency can itself be calculated using all received packets or by using a specified portion of the best (lowest latency) packets, for example a networks mean latency may be specified for just the best 90% of packets. Packet Delay Variation (PDV) describes the variation in latency of packets. PDV is described here using the RMS average of packet delay variations with respect to the minimum Packet Latency observed. Again this can be described for all packets or for just a stated portion of better packets. Packet Loss is the proportion of packets sent for which no response was received. A packet may be considered lost if a response is not received within a pre-defined time out. The loss may be in the outbound direction, server or inbound direction. The characteristics of the two broadband access networks and reference LAN network are summarised below.
17
Cable Network connection Packet Latency min Packet Latency mean Packet Latency mean (of best 90%) Asymmetry (to timeserver- from timeserver) RMS Packet Delay Variation RMS Packet Delay Variation (of best 90%) Packet Loss
Table 3-1
ADSL Network Connection 16.235ms 17.076ms 16.662ms 1.374ms
LAN Connection 180.488s 204.875s 200.924s below measurement limit 29.972s 24.025 s 0.4%
10.675ms 11.646ms 10.991ms 4.870ms
3.780ms 0.728ms 4.9%
3.973ms 0.462ms 0.05%
Scenario characterisation
3.3
3.3.1
Comparison Measures
Availability
Short term non availability of timeservers can be mitigated by using oscillators with good holdover (frequency stability vs. time and temperature) performance, however longer periods of non availability will lead to loss of synchronisation (or at least to loss of confidence of synchronisation). Simultaneous use of multiple timeservers can also mitigate short and long term non availability. The vendor community is responding to the special requirements of network time servers used for frequency synchronisation. The key performance characteristics of a network time server in this application are jitter and capacity (parameters that in some cases interact). Ideally, the jitter between the outgoing time-stamp and its actual time of transmission should be small compared with the minimum jitter achieved by the network. This value of jitter should then be sustained at servers maximum expected load.

Figure 3-2, Figure 3-3 and Figure 3-4 below show the frequency acquisition performance achieved for a range of packet rates over the three different types of connection:
ADSL at 16/48/240 packets per minute, Cable at 16/48/240 packets per minute and LAN at 16 packets per minute.
For each packet rate two lines are shown; one at the upper bound of frequency estimation and one at its lower bound. (Note that the Relative Frequency Error scale is different for the LAN diagram.)
18
Figure 3-2
Typical NTP Frequency Convergence over ADSL
Figure 3-3
Typical NTP Frequency Convergence over Cable
19
Figure 3-4
Typical NTP Frequency Convergence over a Private LAN Connection
3.3.2
Accuracy
The accuracy of the measured frequency is affected by both the performance of the network used to carry the timing packets (PTP or NTP) and the stability of the oscillator being measured. Frequency measurement using packet based timing measures the average frequency of an oscillator over a certain period of time, in the examples above this is 2 hours (though all the examples approached optimum before this). The longer the averaging period the more the stability of the oscillator will affect the accuracy of the measurement, the shorter the averaging period the more the PDV affects accuracy
3.3.3
Back-haul Demands
The packet rate is significant in determining the economics of client:server ratio and, at the higher rates, becomes a consideration for limited-volume internet contracts. The rates used above amount to: 65 MByte/month (each up and down) for 16 packets/minute, 195MByte/month (up and down) for 48 packets/minute and 975MBytes/month (up and down) for 240 packets/minute.
3.3.4
As described in Accuracy above, the stability of the oscillator with respect to time and temperature is important if accuracy is to be maintained. The validity of the frequency measurement made over a particular interval is limited to its stability over the same interval.
3.3.5
Complexity
Accurate time-stamping of network packets is a fundamental requirement for both NTP and PTP. At the client, the timestamp must be related to the frequency source that is to be conditioned. At the server, the time-stamp is related to UTC via a stable local reference oscillator. For NTP, it is sufficient to time-stamp only incoming packets at the client. PTP generally requires the time-stamping of both incoming and
20
outgoing packets. The acquired timestamps are then associated with the respective packet and communicated to the timing algorithms. In an embedded client application where the timing application interacts with a protocol stack via a Sockets interface, time stamps can be attached as ancillary data to the socket buffer in the networking protocol stack. This may be achieved with a kernel driver that reads/writes the packets from/to the network MAC. PTP timeservers compliant with Annex E of the IEEE 1588v2 use destination ports 319 or 320 (depending on the type of message) for messages sent from the PTP timeserver regardless of the port originating any requests from the client. This does not allow for multiple clients to be accessed behind NAT routers and requires some configuration even for single clients.
3.3.6
Cost
With up to 100,000 clients per NTP server and as few as 1000 clients for a standard PTP server, the average cost for each femto accessing a server is in the order of US$0.10 per client of an NTP timeserver and in the order of US$10.00 per client of a PTP timeserver.
4. Hybrid AGPS-Packet Timing

4.1 Description
As one of the candidate timing solutions, AGPS is a prominent way of acquiring timing and location everywhere on the earth, with high sensitivity enabling it to be used indoors. PTP (Precision Timing Protocol) or NTP (Network Timing Protocol) are protocols that were designed to enable accurate time transfer in packet networks. Depending on the housing structure within which the Femtocell is located and the network environment via which the Femtocell is connected, the quality of timing and frequency by AGPS or packet timing can be affected and the quality may be below the telecom requirements. AGPS cannot support the required timing and frequency synchronization with 100% availability indoors because of the high GPS signal loss. The attenuation of the GPS signal as it passes through walls, roofs, floors, coated windows or any obstacles can be such as to render the GPS signal indetectable by the receiver. GPS signals reflected by the walls of neighbouring buildings may induce large timing errors. For these reasons, reliable GPS signals may not arrive well deep indoors. Therefore, AGPS performance is limited by the environment. On the other hand, PTP and NTP are dependent on the factors of the backhaul network such as traffic conditions, switches and routers. They may result in high PDV (Packet Delay Variation) or even extinction of timing packets. In addition to this, there are issues on timing packet servers. Massive numbers of Femtocells will require correspondingly large numbers of timing servers on a Femtocell network in order to provide an adequate server to client ratio. The requiring number of servers is mainly dependent on the packets per unit time that is determined by requiring quality over network. Up to date, commercial PTP and NTP server capacities are seen as roughly 500 to 1K and 100K ~ 200K respectively for some reason. NTP having equivalent PDV issue to PTP is a candidate solution for a packet timing however, following has to be considered. The number for timing packets from an NTP server might be limited as several packets per second. Being operated commercial NTP server that femtocell service provider does not own might bring confusion when there is quality issue, so the service provider is recommended to operate their own servers. For higher performance, NTP server should support H/W stamping. Some of them may not support H/W time stamping. Both NTP and PTP can be possible for hybrid packet timing however, PTP is focused as packet timing in this paper. Also, the location of each timing server (Grandmaster) needs to be careful to guarantee the performance at clients when standalone PTP is employed as a synchronization method. As a rule, IEEE 1588 network design should seek to minimize the number of hops between grandmaster clocks and their clients in order to mitigate risks from the packet timing delay variation. Where excessive hops cannot be avoided, network planners should deploy grandmasters near the edge of the network to guarantee the required timing and synchronization accuracy.
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4.2
AGPS-PTP/NTP Hybrid Concept
The AGPS-PTP hybrid is a timing solution well suited for indoor Femtocell deployment. It makes best use of each of the advantages of AGPS and PTP. The AGPS-PTP hybrid can improve timing and frequency quality by selecting the better reference among AGPS and PTP. As a preference, AGPS-PTP recovers timing and frequency from AGPS. However, when AGPS goes into holdover due to lack of satellite signals or due to poor signal quality, AGPS-PTP switches over to the reference of PTP packets that travel from PTP master so that it keeps timing and frequency in good quality. Not only can a grandmaster be a PTP master, but also neighbouring Femtocells can be employed as PTP masters provided the network distances between those masters and slaves are short. In this scheme, all Femtocells will have neighbour lists that contain information to make a cluster, and the neighbour lists will be delivered by an AGPS-PTP server. All Femtocells in the same cluster will exchange information so that they find potential masters with good timing quality and will set up connections between masters and slaves. One client can have multiple masters and multiple slaves at the same time so that they support redundancy in case of network problems. There may be concern about the cost of the AGPS-PTP hybrid solution, because the BOM of timing will include both AGPS and PTP components. From the perspective of TTCI (Total Timing Cost Index) that covers BOM, server cost and its maintenance cost, AGPS-PTP can be shown to be a more cost effective solution than PTP standalone. Lets say, for example, assuming grandmasters capacity at best as 1K slaves, at least 1K grandmasters should be on a network to support 1M Femtocells. More over, there will need to be double this number considering redundancy. Not negligible cost of installing GPS antenna on the roof of a building will additionally be required for Grandmaster. Taking into account practical capacity with margin for any risks, the cost will be higher than that again.
4.3
AGPS-PTP Network and Clustering
AGPS-PTP is basically a Femto to Femto timing solution. It is configured as a distributed network separate from the centralized PTP grandmaster and slave architecture. In the AGPS-PTP network, a cluster is able to maintain synchronization independent from the PTP grandmaster. Figure 4-1 shows AGPS-PTP network composed of a hybrid server and hybrid clients.
Figure 4-1
AGPS-PTP network and clusters
The AGPS-PTP hybrid server features hybrid timing network management functions such as clustering, providing assistance data as an AGPS server and providing PTP packets as a PTP grandmaster. AGPS-PTP hybrid client is a Femtocell that maintains precise frequency and time by taking a reference from AGPS or PTP selectively. Clusters can be configured and maintained by themselves or with the help of the AGPS-PTP server. A cluster has to be configured to have short network distance between master and client. The short network distance will drive low variation of packet jitters and low traffic load with fewer timing packets. A Cluster is an independent AGPS-PTP hybrid timing network composing at least one PTP master synchronized to GPS and multiple PTP slaves. The hybrid server gathers information of what masters
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synchronized to GPS are on the network and provides neighbour lists to clients requesting to find out potential masters on the same network. Each hybrid client can have multiple masters and multiple clients at the same time that will be able to provide redundancy to support seamless operation of clock recovery. The methods used to form and maintain clusters will determine the quality of the synchronization.
4.4
Expected Benefits
The benefits from AGPS-PTP/NTP hybrid are expected below. Firstly, AGPS-PTP hybrid timing compensates disadvantages of both AGPS and PTP. On one hand, PTP compensates and reduces the dependence on the GPS RF environment. On the other hand, GPS is able to reduce the dependency on the network within which the Femtocell resides by making the network distributed rather than centralized. Provided one of the two references is available, the Femtocell can maintain its timing and synchronization. Secondly, PTP requires many servers (Grandmasters) on a network, but clustering does not require a huge number of servers. So hybrid timing can save costs of OPEX and CAPEX relating to servers. Thirdly, a hybrid client can have multiple PTP masters that are possibly neighbouring Femtocells. The closer a master is to a client, the less is the PDV of the arriving timing packets at the client. Last but not least, AGPS-PTP has a high probability of successful synchronization with minimum packets so that traffic load by timing packets can be reduced on a network. Because the AGPS-PTP/NTP packet network is not centralized, the traffic load by timing packets is distributed. As a result the grandmaster does not need to have high capacity to manage a massive number of PTP slaves.
4.5
For AGPS-PTP Hybrid solutions each scenario studied will be a combination of an AGNSS scenario with additional segmentation based on factors relevant to packet timing. These include: Office (cluster interconnected by private network) Residential (cluster interconnected by public network)
The AGNSS availability will also impact the clustering as the clusters may need to be larger to ensure that at least one AGPS timing master is present within the cluster if the probability of AGPS availability is very low.
4.5.1
Private Network
A Private network can be the intranet of an office or SOHO (Small Office Home Office) in which connections are made via Ethernet within a limited range. In a private network, the distance (hop count) between any host and others may be very small, in general smaller than 2 hops. For this reason, the PDV contributed by network nodes (switches, routers) is relatively small and only a small number of PTP messages may need to be exchanged in order to keep the frequency and phase accuracy in a cluster. Moreover, in an IP multicast enabled intranet, any host can send IP multicast traffic to any group address, and any host can receive IP multicast traffic from any group address regardless of their location. To facilitate this capability, IP multicast must be supported by the hosts and routers of the intranet. This can make the method of clustering more distributed (decentralized) and self-organized. Each AGPS-PTP hybrid node can be the member of a multicast group using Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP). If the announcement, sync and followup messages are sent in multicast, all slaves of the multicast group can detect the neighbouring masters, compare the quality and join a cluster with the best master.
4.5.2
Public Network
A Public network can be the internet connected via xDSL, Cable (DOCSIS), xPON or Ethernet over a wide range. The distance (hop count) can be very large and varied depending on the location. So a dynamic PTP message rate may be necessary to recover the clock. For example, if the distance between master and slave is very far, it is necessary to adjust the PTP message rate to a much higher rate in order to maintain the accuracy. In a public network, multicast can be prohibited by the ISPs network policy and each AGPSPTP hybrid may not have any method to discover the neighbouring masters without the help of an external server which stores the related information about all the AGPS-PTP hybrid nodes. However the centralized approach (the method in which the server manages all things related to clustering) can put considerable load on the server. So we will use a mixed method involving both centralized and distributed approaches in the public network. (The clustering method in the public network will be illustrated in the future). The building attenuation and multi-path propagation can have an effect on receiving the GPS signal. The poor GPS signal can degrade the clock quality in the master node and result in the holdover status. The
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change of master status has an effect on the frequency stability, phase jump and reference switchover in the slave nodes.
Private network Test environment Network type Network configuration PTP message type PTP message rate Delay asymmetry Clustering method
Table 4-1
Public network Residential (internet) xDSL, Cable (DOCSIS), xPON, Ethernet Variable configuration Unicast Dynamic Inherent asymmetry of xDSL, Cable (DOCSIS) and xPON Distributed / Centralized
Office (intranet) Ethernet Fixed configuration Mixed unicast / multicast, Or Unicast Constant Asymmetry from the traffic condition Distributed (decentralized) Server not necessary
Network Scenarios of AGPS-PTP Hybrid
4.6
4.6.1
Comparison Measures
Server Estimation
Hybrid AGPS-PTPs performance is inherited from AGPS and PTP technology themselves. Another important performance consideration is the subject of how many the required number of servers can be reduced by this hybrid structure that is beneficial to the total cost that includes PTP servers. Assuming some parameters, the required number of PTP servers for femtocells can be calculated. The probability of good synchronization by GPS was referenced from the GPS probability of fix explained in the AGNSS section. A typical value for IAS is assumed to be -148dBm. This was derated by 3dB to allow for interference and antenna efficiency in the femtocell application. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. GPS Probability of fix for an AGPS receiver with IAS of -148 dBm in an office environment The number of femtocells : 100,000 The size of a cluster : Sc = 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 The estimated number of servers, Ns Probability of blanket cluster : P = (1-Pf/100)Sc Where, all femtocells in a cluster cant receive GPS signals to lock Server capacity : 500 clients
All Femtocells in the same cluster are assumed to be adjacent to each other from the network distance (i.e hops) point of view. To make this estimation simple, dynamic clustering hasnt been considered. However, Error! Reference source not found. shows how many servers are required in AGNSS scenarios depending n the cluster size. The required number of servers can vary dramatically depending on the GPS probability of fix. In most cases of rural and urban areas except for dense urban concrete office with higher attenuation tinted windows, the hybrid AGPS-PTP structure shows good efficiency of the required number of server. Around two hundred PTP servers (grandmaster) are estimated to cover 100K femtocells to acquire the required frequency and phase accuracy practically. That is, based on an assumed ratio of one PTP server to 500 clients. In an ideal case that all clusters are independently synchronized between femtocells, no grandmasters are required. However, considering poor GPS signals at certain regions, low fix probability may result in a requirement for external servers to provide timing packets for femtocells in the area. Figure 4-2 shows the estimation of the requiring number of servers as a function of the GPS fix probability. Except for a case of dense urban steel and concrete office with higher attenuation tinted windows, this demonstrates the effectiveness of clustering in residential and other office environments.
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Servers per 100K Femtocells in AGNSS Scenarios

180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Average Cluster Size Rural Steel & Concrete Office on Flat Ground Rural standalone house on flat ground
Rural brick apartment on flat ground
Urban Steel and Concrete Office with Tinted Windows
Figure 4-2
Servers for 100K femtocells in AGNSS scenarios
Figure 4-2 shows the required number of servers for AGPS-PTP hybrid compared to that for PTP standalone. The calculation was done based on the survey of housing in Seoul, KOSIS, 2005. It is assumed that 10% (229K) of households in Seoul have femtocells at their houses with the same proportion. (Rural standalone house : 20%, Dense urban concrete apartment : 55%, Rural brick apartment : 25%). Depending on the average cluster size, the required number of servers can vary from 52 at worst to 1 at best rather than 459 Grandmasters in the case of PTP. Practical fix probability would need to be studied in the field, and so conservatively low fix probabilities as listed in Table 4-2 were considered for this estimation.
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(for 229K femtocells at a housing type proportion)

500 Required number of Servers 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 2
Figure 4-3
Servers in a Case Scenario
459
PTP standalone AGPS-PTP
52
20 3
8 4
3 5
2 6
1 7
1 8
Average cluster size
Required number of Servers Compared to PTP standalone
Rural standalone house The number of households Fix probability assumed

Table 4-2
Dense urban concrete apartment 1,258,658 (55%) 60%
Rural brick apartment 577,379 (25%) 70%
Total
455,857 (20%) 90%
2,291,894
2005 Housing in Seoul, KOSIS
Packet timing related standards defining types of network, telecom profiles, PDV quality and network conditions would require relatively higher packets per unit time for any impairments than the number of packets seen on a live network at normal condition.
4.6.2
Private Network Test Results
A Private network can be the intranet of an office or SOHO (Small Office Home Office) in which connections are made via Ethernet within a limited range, the configuration of network is almost fixed and isnt apt to change. The distance between any host and others may be very small, in general smaller than 2 hops and the PDV is relatively small because of the constraint network. According to AGPSs analysis, AGPS fix availability varies from below 20% to about 87% in a dense urban office building with high attenuation tinted windows depending on the AGPS solution employed. The GPS signal is highly variable and unstable indoors, and therefore our test should be conducted for the case of a dense urban office building with tinted windows. Figure 4-4 shows the test network as an assumed typical private network composing one L3 and seven L2 switches at the largest between DUT 1 to 8. AGPS scenario is also assumed as two DUTs in good GPS signal
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strength (25%), another three DUTs in moderate (37.5%) and remaining three DUTs (37.5%) in bad intended to simulate the conditions in a dense urban concrete apartment.
Figure 4-4
Private Network Configuration (Office & Lab)
Over a long period of time, frequency accuracy is measured on DUT8 by making it has 3 potential masters of DUT1, 3, 5 with different network distances. The DUT1, 3 and 5 in weak GPS signal environment are forced to repeat GPS Lock and Unlock with cycles. By BMCA (Best Master Clock Algorithm), the GPS disabled client (DUT8) finds the best master and then synchronizes to it. At the same time, it monitors a redundant master for a swift switchover if the chosen master is disabled or in a state of losing reference. Figure 4-5 shows the frequency accuracy measured from DUT8. The average of frequency accuracy is about 0.49 ppb and the standard deviation is about 1.83 ppb. While the network distance including L2 switches is changed during the switchover, the frequency accuracy is not much changed. The network distance by hop is not changed a lot in the private network and the PDV is relatively small, so that the network configuration has little effect on maintaining the frequency. In addition, the small number of PTP messages can be exchanged to keep the frequency and phase accuracy in a cluster.
Figure 4-5
Private Network Test Result (Office & Lab)
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4.6.3
Public Network Test Results
A public network can be the internet connected via xDSL, Cable (DOCSIS), xPON or Ethernet over a wide range. The distance (hop count) can be very large and varied depending on the location. Test environment is described below.
Figure 4-6
Public Network Test Configuration
4 sites over two neighbour cities Ethernet over FTTH/FTTB 5~6 L3 switches plus 4 L2 switches (Between DUTs) Home gateways equipped with NAT/PAT Dense urban concrete apartment in weak GPS environment
shows the frequency accuracy measured from DUT1 by making DUT2 ~ 4 forced to be holdover with cycles. As shown in Figure xx, the average of frequency accuracy of DUT1 is about -0.2 ppb and the standard deviation is about 3.40 ppb. The frequency accuracy is maintained less than 15 ppb which meets the specification.
Figure 4-7
Figure 4-7
Public Network Test Result
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AGPS-PTP is a possible candidate solution as explained through a private / public network test. NAT/PAT, firewall represents an issue that remains to discussed for easy deployment and plug and play. Network timing protocols such as PTP and NTP are not completely free from the network environment they use.
4.6.4
NAT, Firewall
In a real implementation, the femtocell might be co-located or integrated with a residential gateway (Home Gateway). The Home Gateway might provide functions such as network address translation (NAT) and firewall. This protects the internal home network, but prevents the direct connection between femtocell sitting in the home network and PTP timeserver that are outside (reachable through the public Internet). Moreover, NAT might translate UDP source port number to different port number. With regard to PTP timeservers, Annex E of the IEEE 1588v2 requires that the destination UDP port for messages from a PTP timeserver is either port 319 or 320 (depending on the type of message), this does not allow for multiple clients to be accessed over NATed networks. But, NAT traversal might be solved by following methods:
Using IPSec for NAT traversal

IPSec is being considered in some mobile applications, especially in case of using the unsecured links for the backhaul (e.g. femtocell, see 3GPP TS 33.320). Moreover, UDP Encapsulation of IPsec ESP tunnel mode can encapsulate an entire IP datagram inside the encrypted shell, which allows the timing packets to travel across the NATed network without any port translation.
Setting port forwarding of NAT device

The destination UDP port (319, 320) might be translated to uncertain UDP port number according to the type of NAT/firewall. In general, Port forwarding is a technique which creates a tunnel through the NAT/firewall for computer on the internet in order to communicate to one of computers on the LAN on a specific port. This can also enable the static port translation on the NAT/firewall to be set to use same port number. The port forwarding can be done by manual configuration (direct access or remote access) or by software such as Universal Plug and Play (UPnP).
4.6.5
In hybrid architecture, the fastest way among AGPS or PTP will determine the acquisition time to fix clock frequency.
4.6.6
Accuracy, Oscillator Requirements, Back-haul Demands
In principle, accuracy, oscillator requirements and back-haul demands are inherited from PTP and AGPS. However, PTP clients in a cluster will get almost same or higher performance in terms of frequency accuracy than PTP standalone because clustering will be maintained under short network distance (hops) between a master and a slave.
4.6.7
Complexity
Integrating AGPS and PTP on the client side will be more complex than AGPS or PTP standalone. However, the network complexity of servers will definitely be decrease. Here, frequency synchronization only may require smaller packet rate than frequency and phase. Again, to acquire accurate timing accuracy, like 1PPS phase accuracy, there may need more packets to measure the accurate time delay between a maser and a slave. To do so, for example, minimum delay packets in a certain range must reside within a processing window. This will bring a need of high packet rate in between. From the reason, 64 PPS(Packet Per Second) for every Femtocell has been assumed here for the calculation of the server capacity in general. Depending on clients servo algorithm, oscillator stability the network size, the network traffic loading, lock time requirement and the performance target, server capacity may be re-calculated accordingly.
4.6.8
Cost
TTC (Total Timing Cost) includes timing cost of client and server cost. Since the benefit from the PTP server reduction, TTC will decrease since OPEX and CAPEX relating to servers. Due to the reason, hybrid AGPS-PTP appears to be less costly than PTP standalone.
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5. Cellular Network Listen

5.1 Description
An existing Macro-cell network of base-stations provides a convenient and reliable source of synchronisation for a femtocell equipped with a suitable receiver. Clearly this approach is not applicable where femtocells are deployed purely to provide coverage where none currently exists. The monitored network need not use the same technology as the femtocell, for example a GSM network may be used to synchronise a UMTS femtocell. It is important to establish that the monitored network is a reliable source of synchronisation to a better accuracy than required for the femtocell. In general this means establishing that the signal comes from a macro-cell with, say, 50ppb guaranteed frequency accuracy rather than another femtocell that may already be at the regulated limit. As a result, synchronisation may only be possible between co-operating networks where the type of cell can be established reliably. Any macro-cell base-station will be synchronised in frequency to better than 50ppb which is significantly better than any femtocell requirement. In this simplest case a macro-cell transmission can be used to synchronise a femtocell needing only frequency control instantly. In the femtocell, at least a separate set of front-end filters may be required to monitor out-of-band macro-cells but in many cases there need be no additional overhead the existing receiver sub-system is often flexible enough to perform frequency measurements on an occasional basis (say, daily). Phase (time) synchronisation using the macro-network or using neighbouring cells is a potentially powerful technique. The primary requirement for phase synchronisation is to achieve alignment with neighbouring cells operating on the same channel to avoid Tx/Rx clashes in TDD systems and enable pseudo-synchronous broadcast services including MBMS. As such, one could conceive a network of base-stations synchronised entirely by monitoring each others transmissions. The complexities in managing such a network have yet to be fully addressed. Some cellular standards include the specification of phase in their transmission characteristics. Although GSM and UMTS explicitly avoid a mandatory requirement for phase synchronisation, any network equipped for TDOA location and most networks in practice transmit phase-aligned signals. CDMA2000 and TDD networks mandate phase alignment. Radio waves propagate at about 300m per microsecond so synchronisation in the order of microseconds requires ranging information. In CDMA2000 and TDOA-equipped GSM networks a subscribers range can be established by the network. However, a listen-only femtocell is unable to use this facility since the lack of an up-link makes it impossible to measure round-trip delay. If the location of both femtocell and macro-cell are known within a few hundred metres then range information could be estimated (perhaps subject to reflections in very mountainous regions, propagation in urban environments with a higher density of macrocells is unlikely to result in errors of much more than one or two microseconds). To summarise, (time) synchronisation of a femtocell using the macro network is possible but, in general, relies on an independent means to establish the location of macro base-stations and femtocell. In all synchronisation schemes, it is vital that a common time-base can be used for measurement and transmission. In the case of macro-cell monitoring this is unlikely to represent a difficulty in a femtocell architecture if the same transceiver sub-system is used for both functions and continuity of time can be established between receive and transmit cycles.
5.2
5.2.1
Scenario Definition and Characterisation
Cellular Network Listen is essentially independent of back-haul. The scenarios are determined by the need for just frequency control or time synchronisation and frequency control at the femtocell and the type of underlying macro-network coverage, if any. Frequency control is possible from any macro-network. The following examples illustrate where time synchronisation is also possible.
Macro network WCDMA FDD LTE FDD WCDMA TDD SC-TDMA, LTE TDD
Conditions Depends on optional synchronisation of the macro network (e.g. for MBMS) None
Required Aids Location of femto and basestations Location of femto and basestations
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Macro network GSM
Conditions Depends on optional synchronisation of the macro network (e.g. for TDOA)
Required Aids Location of femto and basestations (possible by TDOA if signals from 3 base-stations are available) Location of femto and basestations (possible by TDOA if signals from 3 base-stations are available)
CDMA2000
None
Table 5-1
Availability of Time Synch from Macro Networks
5.3
5.3.1
Comparison Measures
Availability
For frequency control, coverage by a single macro-cell is sufficient. The signal levels may also be below the level necessary for a comfortable voice call (often limited by the up-link that is not used or necessary in this case). Likewise timing can be derived from a single macro-cell if location is known by other means. At least three synchronised base-stations must be received for accurate location. In many parts of the world femtocells are deployed to extend voice coverage to areas and buildings outside adequate macro coverage. However, significant numbers of femtocells are deployed in areas of existing macro coverage and can make use of timing and location derived from the macro-cell network. In summary, macro-based methods provide an important benefit in typical deployments but cannot be relied upon for universal coverage.
5.3.2
Results from macro-based measurements are available essentially instantly.
5.3.3
Accuracy
Macro-based location measurements are poor compared with GPS (perhaps 100-300m compared with 2050m). However, for timing and frequency control this still allows synchronisation within 2-3s and 50ppb quite sufficient for femtocell applications.
5.3.4
Back-haul Demands
Macro-based synchronisation and location places no arduous load on back-haul networks.
5.3.5
Where macro-cell network coverage is available, no special requirements need be placed on the femtocell oscillator.
5.3.6
Complexity
Two approaches can be taken to Macro-sniff: the first uses discontinuous periods of reception while the femtocell is not carrying any traffic and can be achieved by re-using some or all of the femtocells resources; the second employs a dedicated receiver that can receive continuously. The simplest but least useful approach monitors only transmissions using the same technology and band as the femtocell but even this, in FDD modes, requires some addition to the RF circuits to allow reception on what would normally be the base-station transmit frequency. Extending the receive function to other technologies and bands allows access to more mature macro-cell networks at the cost of some dedicated RF circuits, antenna(s) and greater flexibility in signal processing and protocol decoding. The most complex step would be the addition of a completely parallel receiver system that can operate continuously alongside the femtocell radio.
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For many purposes including location, frequency control and surveys of the surrounding radio networks, continuous reception is unnecessary. The ability to avoid the need for simultaneous operation of the femtocell and sniff receiver provides a useful simplification. (Time) synchronisation relies on reasonably frequent sniffs of the reference base-station signal, at least every few minutes. In principle, phase alignment can be corrected quite quickly once initially established, certainly within a time that can be tolerated as a signal outage by typical speech codecs. The time taken to switch between femto- and sniffmodes should be taken into account when assessing the impact. A fully parallel receiver completely avoids the need to switch or interrupt the femtocell operation. Frequency control using a macro-cell network incurs some management overhead in identifying and verifying that the received base-station as a sufficiently reliable source as a frequency reference. Where other base-stations are used for time alignment, there is a possibly significant additional overhead in establishing the femtocell location and establishing the range to the reference base-stations (to the order of 100m).
5.3.7
Cost
Within an Operators own network, existing provisioning and management systems will include location information for macro base-stations and frequency accuracy will be well defined. Information relating to other Operators base-stations may come at some cost either directly or by subscription to an independent service provider (e.g. Googles SUPL service). Overheads at the femtocell itself might include additional antennas, RF amplifiers and filters, together of the order of a few 10c. Future generations of transceiver IC are expected to support discontinuous macro sniff without overhead. It is possible that an additional protocol software royalty may be payable for macro-sniff using alternative technologies.
6. Hybrid AGPS - Femto Sniff

6.1 Description
Another hybrid concept involves AGPS and femtocell sniffing. In this scheme all of the femtocells incorporate AGPS synchronization. However, any femtos that fail to synchronize via AGPS sniff their neighbours who have synchronized to AGPS. Such a scheme would be particularly advantageous where femtocells are deployed in residential apartments or offices and can form clusters. The advantages of such a scheme are: 1. 2. 3. Femtocells within a cluster will be in relatively close proximity and so any residual phase errors from imprecise range calculations or multipath will be small; In systems where the macrocell and femtocell networks do not share the same frequency, an additional RF section is not required in the femtocell to support macrocell sniffing; Very high synchronization availability should be achieved.
One unanswered question is how the femtocells that are synchronized via AGPS can be identified by the other femtocells. The answer to this is probably via back-haul communication either between the femtocells or between the femtocells and a server at the gateway. Such a scheme should be standardized. As with any hybrid or multi-synch scheme, a disadvantage is that the femtocell has to incorporate cost to support both synchronization technologies. However, for TD systems in particular, this may be the price for high reliability of the synchronization system.
6.2
6.2.1
Scenario Definition
The scenarios of most interest here are a steel and concrete residential apartment block and a steel and concrete office building in which the AGPS fix availability may be relatively low. In all other scenarios the femto sniff function would very rarely be used.
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6.2.2
Characterization
From the discussion related to Error! Reference source not found. through Error! Reference source not found., we have that the probability of an AGPS fix in the most severe scenario considered would range between 20% and 87% depending on the AGPS technology employed.
6.3
6.3.1
Comparison Measures
Availability
With an AGPS solution with IAS of -144dBm, the fix probability for each femtocell would be20% and a femtocell cluster size of 31 would be needed to give a probability of 99.9% that all femtocells would be synchronized using the AGPS-Femto Sniff hybrid concept. However, with an AGPS solution having IAS of 155dBm, the fix probability for each femtocell would be 87% and a cluster size of only 4 femtocells would give a probability of 99.97% that all femtocells would be synchronized.
6.3.2
This would depend on whether any neighbouring femtocells had AGPS synchronization already. If so then the time to acquire sync would be very short as determined by the sniffing performance. Otherwise it would be as for AGPS.
6.3.3
Accuracy
Synchronization accuracy in the sniffing mode would be limited by the location uncertainty. That would essentially be the unknown distance between any two femtocells in the cluster which would typically be of the order of 20m to300m. This would contribute a timing error component of less than 1 s. Hence the overall timing accuracy would invariably be less than 2 s. Assuming that the femtocells could share their locations with one another, femto sniff could also provide location based on that of the neighbouring femto. The accuracy would have two error contributions that from the AGPS and the uncertain range between the two femtocells. Hence it would be of the order of 50m to 300m.
6.3.4
Back-haul Demands
This scheme would place negligible demands on the back-haul as for AGPS.
6.3.5
The oscillator requirements for this scheme would be low as for AGPS
6.3.6
Complexity
The complexity of this scheme would be the sum of the AGPS complexity with that of macrocell sniff. However, unlike the macrocell sniffing case, the frequencies and air interfaces to be sniffed would be limited to those of the femtocells themselves.
6.3.7
Cost
As for AGPS and macrocell sniff bearing in mind the comments under Complexity above.
7. Implementation Considerations
7.1 Distribution of GPS Assistance Data
As discussed earlier in this document, a proportion of the deployed femtocells with AGPS receivers will require data from the satellites at 2 or 4 hourly intervals for part of the time. This data can be obtained from the sorts of servers deployed to support handset AGPS if they exist in the network or it can be supplied by AGPS service providers.
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However, the data could be gathered by GPS receivers deployed, for example, at the gateways and served to the femtocells that use those gateways if those femtocells are known to be within a few hundred km of their gateway. Such an arrangement would avoid the need for a network of gatherers and servers.
7.2
Internal Sources of Interference
One of the factors affecting the success of an AGPS integration is the level of interference into the GPS antenna from within the femtocell itself. The following suggestions can significantly reduce the impact of this internal interference on the performqnce of the AGPS solution. Clock signals having harmonics within, say, 5 MHz of the GPS centre frequency of 1575.42 MHz should be avoided. A classic example is the 25 MHz clock used in most ethernet interfaces which has a harmonic at 1575 MHz. The alternative 50 MHz clock solution would be far preferable. Another classic example is the oftemployed system clock frequency of 19.2 MHz which has a harmonic at 1574.4 MHz. 30.72 MHz would be far preferable. Where such clock signals cannot be avoided, reduced rise times should be considered, track lengths should be minimised and, as far as possible, such tracks should be kept away from the GPS antenna. The same applies to the TX line from the baseband subsystem to the RF subsystem as the CDMA-spread signal can produce broadband harmonic interference overlapping the GPS spectrum. As mentioned previously, the GPS antenna, if a patch, should be supplied with a ground plane as large as practicable. This will not only improve the efficiency of the antenna but it will also provide some measure of shielding from internal interference. Naturally, in upright models of femtocells, the extent of such a ground plane is limited and interference will tend to diffract around it to the antenna unless, of course, the antenna is mounted on the broad side. However, that would mean that the AGPS performance would depend on the orientation of the femtocell.
7.3
Integration of Multiple Sources of Synchronization
Two hybrid schemes have been discussed within this document. However, there is potential for multiple synchronization solutions to be incorporated into a femtocell without hybridisation along the lines indicated. For example, AGPS and macrocell sniffing can be employed in a femtocell. In this case, macrocell sniffing can aid the AGPS solution on start-up and provide backup when the AGPS goes into holdover. The issue of switching, however requires careful thought. Switching between oscillators will lead to undesirable clock phase discontinuities. Therefore a common oscillator should be employed and the switching should be on the control side of the oscillator. Where time synchronization is employed the switching should also avoid rapid shifts in time as these could lead to lost clock cycles with potentially serious implications for the integrity of the frame generation process. Macrocell sniffing can give timing errors of several microseconds when the femtocell location is unknown and a single macrocell is sniffed. Hence large time shifts may have to be coped with. The solution is for the timing to smoothly and slowly adjust from one to the other. Such mechanisms are built into some synchronization solutions.
8. Conclusions and Future Work

When this activity began it was expected that the end result of the study would be a comparison matrix assisting interested parties in selecting the best technology to employ for synchronization and location for his or her application and range of environments. However, it has become clear that such a blanket matrix is not feasible. The segmentation of the environments is orthogonal across the technologies which means that a multi-dimensional matrix would be required. Also, the employment of multiple technologies and hybrid solutions complicates matters further. Furthermore, there is a great deal of subtlety that needs to be considered when selecting a technology and an implementation and the problem does not lend itself to resolution by picking a solution from a comparison matrix. As a result, this document has become a reference document. It is as comprehensive as we can make it while maintaining an overview perspective and should prove a useful guide. We see two strands of future work. One of those strands would seek to confirm the scenario characterization presented within this document through a systematic program for field testing. It is envisaged that this work could be undertaken by the broader membership of the femto forum using a standardized equipment and methodology to be documented and supplied by the synchronization and location team. This would lead to a revision of this document.
34
The second strand of work would perform case studies in much greater depth leading to a comparison matrix among a set of options for each study. It is proposed that the review panel formed to review this white paper could define the case studies to be performed.
35
References
1 2 3 HSGPS Signal Analysis and Performance under Various Indoor Conditions, G Lachapelle et al, ION GPS/GNSS 2003, 9-12 Sep, 2003, Portland, OR A Detailed Experimental Study of the LEO Satellite to Indoor Channel Characteristics, Zoltan Bodnar et al, International Journal of Wireless Information Networks, Vol 6, No 2, 1999 The Nordnav Indoor GNSS Reference Receiver, Alexander Mitelman et al, ION GNSS 2006, 26-29 Sep, 2006, Fort Worth, TX
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037 Femtocell Synchronization and Location White Paper Final

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Femtocell Synchronization and Location

A Small Cell Forum White Paper

Published 08 May 2012

Small Cell Forum Ltd PO Box 23 GL11 5WA United Kingdom

Figure 4-5 Figure 4-6 Figure 4-7

1. Introduction and Background

Assisted GNSS (AGNSS)

Conventional High Sensitivity AGNSS Techniques

GPS Signal Structure

High Sensitivity Through Data Wiping

High Sensitivity via Non-Linear Signal Processing

Sensitivity Performance Implications Of The Techniques Used

Presence of CW interference sources

Direct through roof, walls & windows

Signal Propagation Paths to Indoor Antennas

GPS Signal Levels Indoors

Construction of Statistical Models

Signal Level Models for the Selected Scenarios

Maximum Fade Variation (dB) 2 3 3 6 10

Typical Maximum Path Extension (m) 2 10 20 100 100

Typical Maximum Timing Error (ns) 15 40 60 300 300

Initial Acquisition Sensitivity (dBm) UAS = -156dBm UAS = -159dBm

UAS = -157dBm UAS = -160dBm

Fix Probability in a Rural Standalone House on Flat Ground

100.00% 99.99% 99.97% 99.96%

100.00% 99.50% 99.00% 98.68% 98.50% 98.00% -14298.04% -140

Initial Acquisition Sensitivity (dBm) UAS = -156dBm UAS = -159dBm

UAS = -157dBm UAS = -160dBm

Fix Probability in a Rural Brick Apartment on Flat Ground

Initial Acquisition Sensitivity (dBm) UAS = -156dBm UAS = -159dBm

UAS = -157dBm UAS = -160dBm

Fix Probability in a Rural Steel & Concrete Office on Flat Ground

UAS = -156dBm UAS = -159dBm

UAS = -157dBm UAS = -160dBm

100.00% 99.96% 99.92% 99.88%

100.00% 99.00% 98.00% 97.38% 97.00%

Initial Acquisition Sensitivity (dBm) UAS = -156dBm UAS = -159dBm

96.00% -142 -140 96.13%

UAS = -157dBm UAS = -160dBm

Fix Probability in a Dense Urban Concrete Apartment

100.00% 80.00% 60.00% 40.00% 20.00% 0.00% -142 -140

Fix Acquisition Time

AGPS Assistance Requirements

3. Network-based Synchronisation (NTP, PTP IEEE.1588, NTR)

Packet Timing over Home Broadband Access

Network Timing Reference (NTR)

Server location & performance will be assumed for all scenarios.

ADSL Network Connection 16.235ms 17.076ms 16.662ms 1.374ms

10.675ms 11.646ms 10.991ms 4.870ms

3.780ms 0.728ms 4.9%

3.973ms 0.462ms 0.05%

Fix Acquisition Time

Typical NTP Frequency Convergence over ADSL

Typical NTP Frequency Convergence over Cable

Typical NTP Frequency Convergence over a Private LAN Connection

4. Hybrid AGPS-Packet Timing

AGPS-PTP/NTP Hybrid Concept

AGPS-PTP Network and Clustering

AGPS-PTP network and clusters

Network Scenarios of AGPS-PTP Hybrid

Servers per 100K Femtocells in AGNSS Scenarios

Rural brick apartment on flat ground